by Roby Curtis So many times I can get apathetic, self-centred, close-minded and only do things my way, in my time. So many times I only rely on my own knowledge and instinct, and listen ONLY to myself. So many times I will only trust my own leadership and ability to lead, and steer clear of being radical or daring! So many times I will ONLY do things my way. Can anyone else relate?! Now I don’t pretend to be a master of worship, but I do believe that worship is a place where God wants to move powerfully in our lives and be unleashed in ways in which no other force on earth can move! God wants to do so much through our worship. God wants to lead us in ways in which we haven’t even yet experienced. I believe God has a massive plan to pour out His Spirit and to see impossible things become possible. God wants to take us there, but are we open and ready? I know that I’m not always open or ready, in fact mostly not! But I still believe that these are things that God wants to do through our worship. As a worship leader I’ve found that there are 3 blockages that can get in the way of us reaching this place with God and letting Him lead us there: • Normality • Apathy • Fear It’s so easy just to be a follower and ‘do things as they have always been done’. As musicians we follow schedules and are often in situations where we need to do things a certain way and lead worship as it was done last week. This is OK, don’t get me wrong, but I believe that it can become a real blockage. When we get stuck in the rut of doing things as they’ve ‘always been done’, we restrict new ideas and before we know it we are captive to normality. I don’t think God wants our worship to be normal: He wants it to be radical. God calls us to be ‘set apart’ in all that we do (which is what the word ‘saint’ means). If we want to lead people in new and exciting ways but always restrict ourselves (and the Holy Spirit) only to what is ‘the norm’, then how will what we do ever be exciting or appealing? Let’s not be normal! Apathy is another blockage in allowing the Spirit to lead us in worship. Sometimes as leaders we just don’t care or are not overly excited about what we are about to do! It’s sometimes difficult to motivate yourself and your team to be passionate in worship. Sometimes we are affected by what’s going on in our lives, or we’re just feeling flat. This causes us to not really care about what we’re doing and all we want to do is ‘just get through it and go home’ (I’m speaking from personal experience!). It’s so important to embrace every opportunity to worship and lead others in worship. God is always on the move: we don’t want to miss the boat and cause others to do the same just because we aren’t fully embracing the moment. This can be so difficult to push past, but I believe if we can find a way to embrace each moment of worship, then God will honour our effort and show Himself in a huge way. Fear is the root of so much that doesn’t happen in our world and our Church. We are all afraid - more times that not - to stand up, speak out and act upon what the Holy Spirit is saying to us. Fear blocks us from saying and doing things that are outside the box. Fear is not from God and has never been. It’s because of fear that we do what is ‘normal’. Then it’s because of normality that we become apathetic. Then the cycle continues. God gave us His Spirit to show us the way and to lead us. The Holy Spirit is wild and does crazy things; just read the book of Acts! Why would He want to start ceasing up the older He gets? I think we need to reclaim the Spirits intensity. We live in intense times and our worship needs to match it. Let’s not be scared of new things; let’s not be afraid of the challenges. Let’s be open and have courage to follow God boldly in worship. Worship is massive! It’s not timid and small as we sometimes make it out to be. Worship is the act of honouring the God of the entire universe. Worship is so big, and God wants to constantly reveal his immensity to us, so we can share in it. God desires to be close to us. Worship is a place where we can meet Him one on one. God will connect with people regardless, but we have a role as worship leaders to lay a path so that others can experience God. We are given a responsibility to lead people, but we need our leading to be of the Holy Spirit and Him alone. We are merely a vehicle to connect people with God in powerful ways! I believe if we allow our worship to be completely led by the Holy Spirit then we will see miracles. If we lead worship with openness then we will see the Holy Spirit manifest in our world. If we let God in more and more, we will see people connecting with Him in such a way that they will give their lives completely to Him, with no compromise. If we remain open in our own worship leading then we will see a generation of true worshippers rise and a spiritual revival in the world! Peace |
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